Anti-Business Politics in Action?

I'm hardly a fan of the socialist leanings of the current administration, but when I hear from clients, friends and associates about how President Obama's policies are anti-business I need to question their emotions versus the facts.

A look at the chart below, taken from the 2012 Bespoke Report, shows a very different picture than I would expect from an anti-business President.  Obviously three years is far too short a time period to infer success or failure of any policy, and I personally don't agree with much of what's being done in Washington with abuses of the Constitution such as nationalized health care.  But it's hard to argue that the Obama Administration has been bad for business, at least as measured by stock market performance.





Assessing Obama's anti-business agenda as measured by unemployment also shows a different picture.  Unemployment has also stopped skyrocketing and begun to decrease since Obama took office in January 2009, as noted by this chart from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Again, I'm not personally a proponent of the current administration, and my message is not that we should re-elect President Obama because he's been good for business.  On the contrary, I think that these metrics would have reflected similar improvements had John McCain won the last election -- and perhaps they'd be even better.

However, to say that this administration has been bad for business doesn't hold water, at least thus far.

My message is this:  don't believe everything you hear simply because it supports your ideas or attitudes -- think critically and independently about important issues.